Halloween Blu-ray review

Jan 14, 2019- Permalink

It’s been four decades since Michael Myers went after Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in John Carpenter’s 1978 horror flick Halloween and spawned a franchise of okay and forgettable sequels. Now, director David Gordon Green and his co-writers Jeff Fradley and Danny McBride ask us to forget all those follow-ups and view their 2018 Halloween as the one true sequel. The film scared the bejeezus out of audiences in the cinemas and now you can scream your lungs out in the comfort of your own home as it makes its home entertainment debut. I had a chance to look at the Blu-ray version of the film.

The 1080p AVC-encoded transfer is in the theatrical release’s 2.39:1 aspect ratio. The production was shot digitally and the transfer looks great. Overall the video presentation is crisp and clean and detailed, with only a few bits of softness here and there. Facial features look great and environmental textures, whether they be natural or man-made, reveal their details perfectly. The colour palette is natural, whether it be the skin tones or the appropriately abundant amount of blood, and dark levels are excellent. Digital noise is also absent except for some tiny amounts that are barely worth mentioning.

Horror films scare as much with the ears as with the eyes, so let’s check out the audio side. The disc comes with an English DTS:X soundtrack, an English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 soundtrack and Spanish and French DTS 5.1 tracks. Subtitles are available in English SDH, French and Spanish. The DTS:X soundtrack, for those with the right equipment, adds height to the soundscape, but except for a few moments, they’re not given much of a workout. However, the regular surround channels do put you in the centre of the action and music and dialogue is well presented too. The lower frequencies could use a bit more oomph here and there but this is still a great soundtrack.

On the extras side, Halloween provides us with a DVD copy and a digital download code. There’s a collection of extended and deleted scenes, featurettes on the making of the film, Jamie Lee Curtis’ character and Meyers’ mask and a look at how the original score informed the new one.

The 2018 Halloween has a fantastic video presentation, a very good audio presentation, all the while renewing interest in Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. If you like a good scream, you’ll want to add this to your collection.